Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the National Party, I rise to contribute to the motion on the passing of former Liberal Party member, parliamentarian, minister and great Victorian, the Hon. Peter Reid AM. Elected to the seat of Flinders in 1982, he served our parliament for more than 17 years. He served under Liberal leaders Malcolm Fraser, Andrew Peacock, John Hewson, Alexander Downer and John Howard. His loyalty and dedication are renowned within the coalition, and even more renowned was his wicked sense of humour, I am told. Mr Reith was seen as the hard man of the Howard government not only on industrial relations but also as leader of the other place. He was a Liberal MP over six parliamentary terms, the party's deputy leader from 1990 to 1994, Minister for Workplace Relations and Small Business and Minister for Defence.

His time as industrial relations minister delivered significant reforms to Australia's workplace culture and laws, creating more prosperity and productivity, which set Australia up to deliver the longest period of sustained economic growth of any nation in recent memory. His reforms included changes to the structure of the Commonwealth Public Service, a significant reform package for small business and an innovative targeted program for the employment of Indigenous Australians. But he is best known for securing the significant productivity reforms which followed the 1998 waterfront dispute, where he fought alongside our primary producers, state organisations and the Victorian Farmers Federation for a more productive and more prosperous export industry. That is what rural and regional Australia and, indeed, our nation was able to benefit from, thanks to the work of Peter Reith, then agriculture minister Peter McGauran, and a whole suite of others from the private sector and beyond. They were fighting the stranglehold that militant unions had on our wharfs at that time, ensuring that we could never actually realise our true potential as one of the great exporting agricultural nations, that we have now become.

Mr Reith was an architect of pivotal workplace reforms which put the interests of employers and employees first. As John Howard said recently:

However contested the outcome of the 1998 waterfront dispute may have been, it was undeniable that world ranking productivity replaced ruinous behaviour which severely damaged some of the most productive businesses in Australia.

The resulting progress, productivity and reforms achieved in the workplace because of Mr Reith's political fortitude and conviction are now at risk with this current government's approach to industrial relations. They want to return us to the days of industrywide industrial chaos and drag us back to the dark ages of union thuggery, corruption and strikes when wharfs were strangled and our exports and imports were damaged and hindered. I hope we will remember Peter Reith's fortitude in taking on those unions and ensuring our wharves and our economy more broadly became more productive and prosperous for all. Richard Alston said that Peter's 'efforts in leading the reform of the waterfront mark him down as one of the best cabinet ministers of all time'. He said:

He was peerless in pursuit of the reform objective, despite having a 24-hour security guard. He never wavered …

Throughout his public life he delivered a lot. My own family was a beneficiary of his time setting up Newhaven College. Both of my eldest sons graduated from Newhaven College. It's a great opportunity on the Bass coast. We have a choice of an independent Christian offering for families. It is really superconnected to the environment as well. It's a unique education. I thank Mr Reith for that as well.

Reith was the Liberal Party's deputy leader and had over almost two decades of involvement in federal politics. He emerged as one of the most significant and toughest coalition government ministers since World War II. During the 1993 federal campaign an onlooker in Broken Hill, Australia's toughest union town—and, yes, in the regions—was astonished to see Peter Reith alone on a street corner extolling the virtues of Fightback, the coalition's offering at that election—a free-market policy credo. According to Andrew Clark of the AFR:

Initially he was ignored but eventually he was encircled by an increasingly angry—

and subtext, typically Broken Hill—

crowd of burly miners and furious women denouncing his message. An imposingly big and snarling sort of man, Reith was undeterred and returned the crowd's hostility in kind, which eventually saw them disperse in disgust.

Peter's political legacy is extensive and lasting. Anyone who's interested in understanding his contribution in more detail should head upstairs to our own Parliamentary Library and check out The Reith Papers, which is an extensive body of work detailing his love of policy and reform across a whole raft of areas. He combined ideology with conviction, duty and diligence and relentless pursuit of reform. Michael Kroger said it best when he said that he was a man of steel. While all ministers, backbenchers and others ran for cover when things got hard, Peter never wavered.

I want to conclude with a quote from Mr Reith, which I think sums up his achievements in public life and attributes of a conviction politician. He said:

You could say, well, the government took a beating. Well, every government has taken a beating in the past on waterfront reform. We took a bit more beating than usual but, then again, we're the only ones who ever got anything done either.

I think there's a lesson for all of us in that. On behalf of the National Party I extend my deepest sympathy to his wife, Kerrie; his four sons—Paul, Simon, David and Robert—and their families; and the very many friends that Mr Reith made whilst he had his time in this place. Vale, Peter Reith.